Abbott backs Privacy Act. Why did that matter to House leadership?

Weeks back I wrote about whining coming from members of the Texas House leadership team that had gone so far as to begin to provide the press with a number of stories questioning Governor Abbott’s abilities. While such was unseemly what was of particular note was the querulous behavior of the Straus House leadership team back as far as January in relation to the Senate’s Texas Privacy Act, or bathroom bill.

House leaders were quoted in the press near-begging Governor Abbott to tell them if he wanted the Privacy Act passed. Most of us took many things Abbott said as support for the matter but House leaders wanted it in express terms.

Governor Abbott has now definitely stated his support of such saying, via Twitter: “I support the principles of both the Senate and House to protect privacy in bathrooms. We will work to get a bill to my desk.”

No matter their party label, these insiders are about making deals to benefit their backers and knowing where the Governor stands on a big public issue is important because it gives them leverage in making deal.

Why did the House leadership, already on the record as opposed to any pushback of the homosexual social and political agenda, care what Abbott’s position was? Was it that they have no courage of their convictions and needed hand-holding to move forward? Or, was it that this anti-conservative crew doesn’t have many convictions but is mainly concerned with legislative currency?

It is the latter.

The Austin-insider leader-types are primarily power traders. No matter their party label, these insiders are about making deals to benefit their backers and knowing where the Governor stands on a big public issue is important because it gives them leverage in making deal.

Since they don’t really care much about ideology or right-and-wrong, many are plenty happy to vote for the bathroom bill, even if they don’t like it, if doing so means they can avoid a line-item veto from Abbott on a favored item or, more often, get quiet support for other issues they are working on.